Hey. You're one too.

No, not a hoverfly on a marigold. It'd be funny if you were a hoverfly on a marigold, though. Especially if you were a hoverfly reading a blog on a marigold.

Ok, so I mean it'd be funny to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be funny to you.

And shut up.

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The class I was teaching this morning happened to have three left-handed children in it (nearly 10% lefties. Interesting. Maybe we're finally taking over). I noticed.

At one point as I was printing something on the chalkboard I said I hoped that everyone could read my left-handed writing. More than one voice piped up with "I'm left-handed too."

We had something in common, you see.





And why is this important, Dee? Well, it isn't. It's just a fact.

I notice lefties. I've always been quick to notice lefties in groups or on television. I've also noticed that other lefties tend to notice lefties as well.

In other words, this isn't an OLF thing. It isn't just me (not that I'm the only OLF out there anyway... and didn't I already tell you to shut up?).

I was the only left-hander in my family. My extended family, even. My father's ambidextrous enough that you can understand where my left-handedness may have come from, but I was alone in being strongly left-handed.

I was the only left-hander in my elementary school class as well.

It's not a wonder, then, that a person would be quick to notice other left-handers when left-handers seemed to be a rarity. We all need to belong somehow, and to see that there were other lefties in the world made me a little bit less... well, let's be honest and say weird. I felt weird, being a left-handed child. Part of that, I think, is that I'm old enough to be in the first generation (around here, at least) that wasn't strongly encouraged to be right-handed. It may be that tying-the-left-hand-behind-the-back disappeared a while ago, but it hasn't really been all that long that children were allowed to choose their hand preference. There are a lot of not-so-very-old lefties out there who received little to no assistance when it came to being left-handed.

Me?

I was left to my leftiness, but I don't think my teachers really knew how to help me with it. How do you hold your pencil, or use your scissors? Sounds like a pretty brainless question, but if a child you're teaching does things backwards (and yet not really backwards. I don't write from right to left, after all. I can, but most people prefer to read things written in the normal direction) from the way you've been taught to do them, how do you deal with that? How do you teach the child to deal with that?

When I was in school, it was dealt with by hoping the child figured it out somehow.

I hope teachers have learned a bit more about it in the mumblemumble years since.

Left-handedness can be a bit like being in an odd little club. You face certain difficulties (which are NOT NEARLY AS BAD as the more militant among us might have you believe. Yes, it's a pain when the spout on a ladle faces the wrong direction. If you can't manage to handle that, then you're a moron maybe you should consider never leaving your house. I can't imagine what life in the real world must do to your psyche), and if you see another leftie you automatically know that they've faced the same difficulties.

It's an ice breaker, if nothing else.

Hey. I see you're one too.

In the case of my left-handed students today, I can't tell you if having a left-handed group leader made them feel more special. I can't tell you if they identified with me, or if they even really cared.

I can tell you that they noticed, however.





That's gotta count for something.